Having just celebrated its tenth birthday the social network that has come to dominate the online advertising space has taken analysts by surprise by announcing revenues of $2.5 billion for the quarter ending March 31 this year. This represents an increase of 71 percent over the same period a year ago and was the fourth quarter in a row in which Facebook has beaten forecasts.
The company's shares have gained more than 90 percent since the middle of last year, allaying fears following its controversial IPO in 2012 that it would not be able to capture advertising as its customers moved to mobile platforms. In the event advertising revenue amounted to $2.27 billion. Of this, mobile advertising accounted for $1.34 billion, or 59 percent. This represents a larger share than in the fourth quarter of 2013, the first time mobile accounted for more than half of Facebook's advertising revenue, at 53 percent.
Now nearly 80 percent of its users are accessing it on smartphones and other portable devices, the company says. The results reflect the way advertising budgets have been restructured to place social media in the mainstream. As Facebook's COO Sheryl Sandberg has stated: “What has really changed for us in the past year or two is that we are now a large and increasingly important part of what you have to do if you're running a business.”
